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My grandfather was an immigrant. He was unceremoniously grabbed off the street by Cossacks in his hometown of Lublin, Poland at an early age and conscripted to serve in the Russian army, and he chose to make his own political statement by getting the Russian guards drunk with good Polish vodka, stealing their boots, and making his way to America. By all accounts he wasn’t particularly a great man. He never became wealthy, didn’t invent anything, and never employed anyone. He had a small still in his house and made booze during the 1920s, which I suppose made him a criminal. He never learned to speak much English. But he loved America, and it’s people like him who made America great.
The biggest problem with the “Make America Great Again” theme is that it assumes that the United States has to be bigger, better and more prosperous than any other country, and that’s a false zero-sum argument that falls apart on closer inspection. It assumes that making America great requires making other countries less great, and its isolationist, closed-border, anti-trade perspective takes the point of view that we must make America great at the expense of other countries.
“Make America Great Again” is backwards-looking. It’s not about progress at all – it’s about trying to return to a time when America was great and the rest of the world struggled.
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It assumes, also falsely, that the United States is inherently superior at everything from manufacturing, to education, to technological development, and that is objectively not the case, no matter how much we may wish it were so. Don’t get me wrong. I like living in the United States, and think it’s a pretty good place to be. I’ve had relatives in Warsaw tell me tales of Communist-era Poland where they lived ten people in a one-bedroom apartment, with newly married couples waiting for years for the housing Commissar to assign them a place of their own. I’m glad I grew up here, and not there.
But to say that we’re the best at everything is a lazy worldview that could ultimately lead to our own downfall. Our current president’s strategy of “making better deals” for us at the expense of others is similarly lazy thinking; a better approach that has longer roots will make better deals for all parties concerned. America will be great when other countries are great as well.
“Make America Great Again” also assumes by definition that the United States is not great now, that we have lost our way and must return to some bygone golden age. There was a time when American manufacturing and level of prosperity was indeed the best in the world, but that was a narrow window of time after the second world war until about the mid-70s, and mostly an anomaly from a historical perspective. Nothing ever stays the same, and we have since moved on. “Make America Great Again” is backwards-looking. It’s not about progress at all – it’s about trying to return to a time when America was great and the rest of the world struggled. True progress is making America great while acknowledging the greatness of other countries, too.
Rather than “Making America Great,” why not “Make the World Great?”
Current popular thought triggers an anti-immigrant sentiment that is similarly dangerous. America has become great because many people from other countries have contributed to that greatness. We attract – or should attract, anyway – great innovators from all over the world, who will invent great things, build job-creating companies, or even just lead quiet and productive everyday lives, and that contribution from people who have chosen to live here is what has really made America great. We discourage that at our own peril.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
oh, so America was so great down the path it was heading? 20 trillion in debt, rampant illegal immigration overcrowding hospitals and schools and putting more strain on our welfare system, big government social engineering and dumbing down of our education system, American manufacturing destroyed for globalization and big business, crony capitalism, and the list goes on. At least Trump is changing the tide!
“Rather than “Making America Great,” why not “Make the World Great?” Not our job to make the “world” great, we have enough problems of our own. I’m not interested in One World Order…
Enough with the anti”immigrant stuff. It’s anti “illegal” immigrant. Stop pushing lies. My wife and her family are “legal” Immigrants and are not against immigration for obvious reasons. How would you categorize this women in this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkvsE5Xitrs
And since I’m on the topic, your view of the illegal that ran down the Muslim girl?